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Kernel panic on SMP systems with ext3 file systems is now fixed.

Details

A few bugs, including one in ext3 that could cause a kernel panic on SMP systems, are fixed in this kernel errata.

In the 2.4.18-3 kernel, a timing change exposed a previously-unseenrace condition in ext3 which could occasionally cause the kernelto panic on SMP systems. The 2.4.18-4 kernel corrects this problem.

In addition, under the 2.4.18-3 kernel it was not possible to build modulesfor the bigmem kernel (used for machines with memory withaddresses higher than 4GB) due to a typo in its header file(__module_bigmem should have been __module__bigmem in the filelinux-rhconfig.h). This is now fixed.

Finally, bugs in the vsnprintf implementation and in the way the kernelreads the /proc/stat file are now fixed.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released erratarelevant to your system have been applied.

Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Manypeople find this to be an easier way to apply updates. To use Red HatNetwork, launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriateRPMs being upgraded on your system. Note that you need to select the kernelexplicitly on default configurations of up2date.

If you experienced the filesystem panic, you are recommended tocheck filesystem consistency. This bug will show up as one of"kernel BUG at journal.c:406" or "kernel BUG at commit.c:535"(The check is done in two places in the source code, and eitherof them might show up.)

To force the filesystem check, log in as root, run touch /forcefsckand then reboot the system. It will check all the filesystemsafter rebooting. This needs to be done only once after youexperience the panic.